The Morning Zoo Crew

Misery loves company. When six people are confined to a 1260 sq. ft. Southern California house, the best thing you can do to feel like you have elbow room is to go to the L.A. Zoo and see some animals in similar circumstances. It was a little chilly by So Cal standards (Mimi & Grampy thought it was subtropical), but it was brilliantly clear and beautiful and the animals were generally out and about.

Our first stop, and biggest hit of the day, was the petting zoo. While N may bite, scratch, claw and scream like an untamed dingo at all his family and friends, he's surprisingly sweet around fellow animals. He found a brush and ran from goat to goat, brushing their coat with the greatest care, whispering to himself the watchword we are always using on him at home: "gentle, gentle, gentle."

We took the tram up to the top of the zoo (it's built on a pretty good hill), and meandered back down. The ride to the top was maybe 10 minutes, but that didn't stop L from asking with ever increasing fervency whether we were "there yet?"


As we strolled down the hill we got to see and take lots of blurry pictures of the standard assortment of Noah's ark denizens.

Mimis are wonderful inventions. They are designed to spend all their time hauling oversized kids around in strollers!

Evidently N is training to be a Mimi.

A somewhat unexpected resident.

On the way out we also got to visit an old friend. Reggie, the Harbor City alligator, is featured regularly in L's bedtime stories. He's an extremely friendly alligator and a very good friend of L's. In recent stories he's had tea with Grandpa Wayne's kitty cat (Grandpa Wayne is our next-door neighbor), and has gone for walks around Lake Machado with Beau, the poodle (another frequent subject of bedtime stories). In the most recent installment Reggie fought off a vicious attack by a bear while L and N were visiting at the lake. This last story was deemed by L to be "a little scary," so I've been instructed that the next story is to feature the return of the bear where he apologizes to Reggie, L and N for being disobedient.